The present invention relates to a process for producing novel fibrous food products from fish and/or animal meat.
In recent years, various attempts have been made to produce fibrous food products from various edible protein materials by spinning them into fibers or filaments. Some of these attempts have been put to practical use for industrial purposes. For example, with their advantage of abundant sources of supply, vegetable protein materials such as soybean or wheat protein have begun to be utilized as fibrous food products prepared by spinning these protein materials into filaments and by converting the filaments into several kinds of palatable food products. In this connection, originating in R. A. Boyer, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,682,466 and 2,730,447, there have been proposed various wet and dry spinning processes such as an alkali dope process resembling a viscose process for producing artificial silk (rayon), wherein soybean protein is dissolved in an alkaline solution and the resulting dispersion is extruded into an acid coagulating bath through a spinneret, and an extrusion process resembling an extrusion process for producing shaped plastics, wherein soybean protein is extruded into filaments through the use of an extruder. Some of these spinning processes have reached the stage of practical use.
On the other hand, in attempts to produce fibrous food products from animal protein materials such as fish meat or animal meat, there have also been proposed various wet and dry spinning processes as is the case with the above mentioned vegetable protein materials. However, none of these proposals have been put to practical use as yet. The reasons therefor are considered to be that: animal protein materials are more expensive then vegetable protein materials, and, thus, the former is inferior to the latter in respect of supply of raw material; the production process is complicated; a high degree of technology is required; a high quality of protein material is required; and the control of quality of the final product is difficult. Thus, in the present state of the art, there is an urgent demand for the development of a process for producing fibrous food products from animal protein materials by spinning them efficiently and conveniently.
The filaments produced from the vegetable protein materials by the Boyer process and the like may be cooked as they are, or they may be converted into meat analogues by bonding them into meat blocks with the use of a binder such as casein.
On the other hand, with regard to animal protein materials, not even filaments produced therefrom are being utilized at present for practical purposes, much less meat blocks produced by bonding such filaments with the use of a binder.
Under these circumstances, if filaments efficiently produced from animal protein materials can be assembled into a fibrous mass from which a block-like fibrous product can be produced without using any binder, the utility value of the animal protein materials can be expected to be greatly increased.